Accented
by Sandshrew777
Summary: At first glance, it's a Russian accent. At second glance, it's a lot more than that, as Sulu learns.


**Disclaimer: I own nothing. Please don't sue me. I'm not worth your time.**

**Author's Note: It's a little weird, this storytelling style I've adopted for this one, but please review!**

* * *

It was a mitten. It was orange. Bright orange. The kind of orange you only find in neon coloring, in Crayola boxes, in the deepest depths of the sun's plasma. The orange he colored his hair _just for kicks_, he had explained to the father with the bullwhip waiting in his hands.

The mitten was orange, like an orange. Orange, sweet and hot. Full of it. Full of life. Full smile.

There was another mitten. Threadbare, yarn stretching in the grooves between the fingers. Black. Black like a tooth because its owner never smiled. At least, not fully, didn't open up all the way. _I have cavities_, he had told the man doing family portraits on a street corner in Chelyabinsk.

The mitten was imperfect. (Gay. Abomination.) Diseased.

Even the orange will fall to the disease, the black mitten feared. Even the orange. But of course the orange didn't care.

And on a young Russian's hands sat the two mittens, the orange on the right and black on the left, the fingers interlocked after he signed away his life to Starfleet Academy. Age fourteen.

-------------

On his sixteenth birthday, the boy shoved the mittens into his coat pockets and stammered his request to a burly man behind a glass counter.

The needle wasn't as bad as he'd thought it would be. Barely tickled, compared to what he'd been through. The ink scratched and burned in the days, weeks to come. He was glad that cadets were on summer leave.

It was a tattoo of a shooting star. There was a simple star--_a decahedron, please, not an asterisk_, he'd told the big man who replied, _Gonna have to draw it, twinky, I ain't a fuckin' scientist._

Then three lines trailed from the star in a curve, like an incomplete rainbow without the colors. The inside of the star was left uncolored, except for the flesh that filled it in. The outline of the star, the lines--they were all a dull green, olive. Almost black on the almost orange skin of his right shoulder.

He almost asked for a phoenix, but, fearing that resurrection--redemption, salvation--was still out of his grasp, settled for the hope of a shooting star instead.

-------------

"It's not your accent, it's a speech impediment," were the first words Hikaru Sulu said to him. He was seventeen, they were on the _Enterprise_ together, and he'd just saved him and then he lost her, and then he came here and then...

"Sorry?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

Sulu smiled and sat down across from him at the chessboard.

"You have problems with your v's. But as far as I can tell, that's not a typical hang-up of Eastern European speakers. At least, not when it comes to English," he explained. "So? Am I right? 'Cause if I am, I'm sure someone in communications could help you out. Maybe Uhura."

Pavel stared, lips pursed, eyebrow still cocked.

"White goes first," he said.

Sulu leaned back for a moment, grin gone. Then he snorted, shook his head lightly, smirked a little, and moved a white knight to C3. Pavel pushed a black pawn to E5.

And so their game began.

-------------

They are on leave. The water is cold. Pavel clutches at his arm, fingers like vises. Like praying mantises. Like Venus fly traps.

The water is cold. Pavel's right arm clutches at Hikaru's left, and too late Hikaru realizes that Pavel was serious about this fear of water he claimed to have. He'd thought Pavel was just being shy again, like when Hikaru saw his tattoo and he jerked his bare shoulder away, put his shirt back on, and refused to practice fencing _like zhat_ again, no matter how "freer" it made his movement.

"Bepa," he keeps whispering, which to Hikaru sounds like "Vyeh-rah" but the opening sound is garbled so it sounds like almost "Wyeh-rah" instead. But if it were "Vyeh-rah", then that would be Vera, which was Pavel's sister's name. He saw it on the back of a family portrait of what he could only assume was Pavel as a boy, no older than ten, not smiling at all next to a beaming girl of about seven, and two tall adults who must have been Pavel's parents. He asked about the picture, but Pavel jerked it away and suggested they go play chess instead.

They are halfway submerged now, the water is cold, Pavel is crying and Hikaru realizes this was a really bad idea and tries to lead him out of the water. But Pavel will not move. His fingers are clamped on to Hikaru's tanned arm. They will leave bruises.

Pavel's other arm is stretched out just a little, the hand raised just a little, as if reaching for someone. But the motion has stopped halfway, and now he looks as if he is saying good-bye.

"Pavel," Hikaru whispers and suddenly he is able to move Pavel again.

When they are back on the beach towels they laid out earlier, Pavel shivers despite the sun beating down on them both.

"She was skating on ze ice," he says. "I was not looking. I was painting ze sunset and I had to hurry because ze stars were coming soon."

"When ze ice cracked, I could not move. Frozen. Funny, that," Pavel scoffs. "I did get her out but she was so cold. I ran her back to ze house.

"I kept saying her name, ower and ower, trying to keep her awake while I ran her back. It was nearly a mile to home from ze pond. She warmed up okay, but she lost a finger to frostbite. Papa had wanted her to model. He...was not happy. He was not happy for a long time.

"I cannot say her name right since. Which is why I haff zhis, _speech impediment_, you say," Pavel finishes.

Hikaru, who has long since set aside the mango he was going to eat, doesn't know what to say. So he takes Pavel's right hand and squeezes it. Pavel smiles a little, looks at the waves.

"Papa named her zhat because it meant faith. I was named after a man in the Bible who was the biggest asshole ewer. And blind," he adds.

Hikaru blinks.

"Paul, right?" he asks. Pavel nods. "But he did a lot of really good stuff, right? He wrote all those letters and things?" Hikaru tries, looking hopeful.

Pavel looks over and laughs, smiling. Hikaru joins in. When they wind down, Pavel, who is still holding Hikaru's hand, looks down at it, thoughtful.

"Yes, he did a lot of good stuff," he whispers. "And zhat is what matters."

And then he leans over and kisses Hikaru, whose last thought before giving in to the pleasure is _About damn time, Pav!_

-------------

Pavel calls him _my boyfriend_ to anyone who asks about the two of them--which is, at first, a heady rush. At second, it is curious. The word he uses is _boyfriend_ which Pavel must find interesting being a non-native English speaker. Being forced to use a word that makes them both younger. Pavel not as much so, of course. The word nearly fits him, like a hand-knitted mitten.

_But what other word could he use? _Hikaru wonders. 'Manfriend' would be stupid. But why not 'lover'?

He asks him this one night while they watch the stars on the computer-simulated night sky on Pavel's bed in his room.

Pavel raises an eyebrow, purses his lips.

"I can't say it, you idiot," he says, smacking Hikaru on the arm for good measure.

"Oh. Well...give it a shot? Please? Just this once," Hikaru wheedles.

Pavel rolls his eyes.

"Fine. But you owe me," he says.

"Anything," Hikaru promises.

Pavel closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and when he opens them Hikaru almost gasps at the seriousness he sees.

"I...l-love...you," Pavel struggles out. Then he grins, wide and toothy, realizing he's got it right.

Hikaru leans in to kiss him in congratulations but ends up kissing Pavel's left index finger.

"Oh, no. I am cashing in zhat fawor," Pavel says, grinning impishly. "Take off your pants, and make it a good show."

* * *

**Author's Note: Please review! :)**


End file.
